


star sketches

by oogenesis



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Collection, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogenesis/pseuds/oogenesis
Summary: zexal poems, drabbles, writing exercises(mostly arclights and kamishiros)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> have accumulated so many zexal poems i've decided to post them. mostly first-draft quality, so please be nice
> 
> asterisks in the chapter titles = the ones i'm most proud of

the puppet deck, iii thinks, seems almost like some kind of ironic self-awareness. he might think that iv were mocking the situation he's in, except he has the feeling it would look very different if that were the case. iii doesn't want to be around to watch. iii wants to bury himself in the solid-alive fairytales of the past, of before, of a world before Everything Went Wrong. the strings stretch shimmering from iv's shoulders, from his joints, delicate-precise on his fingers on the cards. tangled around his neck, around his heart. iii is underwater because it's soft and silent there, and it presses onto his ears so he doesn't need to use his hands. he can feel the strings in his own joints, and iv moves like the most graceful of puppets (if the tangles in the strings are avoided) while iii is pulled and tugged along as though on bumpy ground, the too-soft ragdoll to iv's marionette. if his strings are the slender steel cables he pictures them as he thinks they may be rusted like the ancient forks and ancient swords from under the ground under the water. it's a useless metaphor but he likes it.


	2. braiding *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do a lot of writing from iii's pov hmmm

you braid your brother's hair because your father no longer does so. it is so long, miles and miles of it, tangling around in your fingers. seaweed, spindle thread, strings of pearls. you wonder if you were to look through it if you would find buried in the spreading strands of it old yellowed family photographs, or porcelain boxes of baby teeth. a doll, a toy sword, a hanging mobile of stars. it is wet in your hands on your wrists your arms, it floods around your ankles. you tell him you don't know how to braid hair. once you knew but not anymore

your father's hair is a sleek-shining tail that whips over his shoulder and you have never once seen him braid it


	3. a question *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was originally posted as a separate work but i decided i'd rather have it here

do you think black mist has teeth, two semicircles of gleaming white-dark like black pearls, the only solid thing in a slime-jelly mouth in a slime-jelly head in a slime-jelly body? do they bite and click and snap, show in a stretching elastic grin, are they sharp (sharp like leeching draining vampires, like something that tears) does he run his tongue soft and smooth over them, the only precise-solid thing in an oil-slick body, and then smile like the wolf

.

does astral have teeth. are they small and pearly in his mouth, the back ones like a pillow that has been pressed on? milk teeth cream teeth dairy teeth, the kind you put in a tiny porcelain box with a gold clasp clean and safe when they fall out. does he bite his sea-jelly lip with them when he is thinking, show them in a rare smile like the moon coming out from behind a cloud? (do they catch a little on yuuma's lip, softly, because he is not very good at this)


	4. flight

it takes a lot to learn to control the glider wings, even with an extra intelligence on your back helping you fly them. they rest on the air and roll on its currents like butterfly wings, wobble in the turbulence like a tiny boat on rough water. there is nothing under your feet. the ground is far far below and you feel the gravity pull at your legs, the wings attached to your back the only thing holding you up. like a tightrope walker's pole. the wings are translucent, like something butterfly-fragile, as though they are not really there and there is nothing to prevent you from falling falling falling into the fine distant network of light below you -

as it is there is very little. the harness around your chest, the computer-calculated responses to the air, the human instinct that makes up for the remaining uncertainty. should any one of those fail you will plunge down through the air clear like glass, and it's not so much the death that bothers you - how could it, when it has been creeping into your bones and hollowing them out and growing growing - it's the soonness of it. it's what you'll leave unfinished.

to be up so far in the air is to be closer to the birds than the humans. up here you are not the human you have been pretending to be but rather a delicate contraption of skeleton and feathers, dying slowly and perhaps already dead but still powered by that single tight fierce goal in place of a heart. like an ember it will burn your hands but you will not let go because to let go is to fall. up here you are among the birds, with the swallow-tailed black-white sharp-beaked bird that is your namesake. or, you think it is. you never really thought to ask. it doesn't particularly matter. your home is here, in this not-place where a single misstep means death although there is no ground to step on. you are a bird and your bones are hollowed out because that is the only way to fly


	5. étoiles filantes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "why is this one in french" i wrote this in the margins of a worksheet during french class that's about the only explanation i have

ah, mon père,  
il a des étoiles froides dans les yeux,  
il ne voit plus ses fils  
il voit seulement les étoiles, lointaines et froides. les étoiles  
ne connaissent ne reconnaissent point de famille

nous sommes des étoiles filantes tombées à terre, où nous brûlons.  
nous sommes une famille.  
ah mon père,  
il a tout oublié  
.

oh, my father,  
he has cold stars in his eyes,  
he no longer sees his sons  
he sees only the stars, distant and cold. the stars  
know no recognize no family

we are shooting stars fallen to earth, where we burn.  
we are a family.  
oh my father,  
he has forgotten it all


	6. wood *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is really short but also i really like it

he is a puppet made out of wood. "ha, ha," laughs the puppeteer, "wood, so dried out and burns so easy, what do I want with a burning so easy?" he is enraged, dances futile on the strings, the flames beginning to lick up the already charred wood. needy, hungry flames, wanting wanting and burning bright in the desperation of the wanting. "there is gunpowder inside you," laughs the puppeteer, "what do I want with gunpowder?"


	7. weapon

what a good little son! what a good little weapon! wreck and break his body and drive himself forward dash himself against the rocks. "destroy yourself for this," you tell him, and he does. handcuff the bomb to his wrist and he takes it happily. with pride even. "this is for my family," you can see him thinking, spelled out on his lips in his eyes. "family family family." that family doesn't exist anymore. but you don't tell him that because it is so very useful to have a martyr on your side. you don't even have to tell him to die for you, he does it himself. tiger stripes on his body, glowing sick and feverish and unnatural, the sky itself rending above him. for family. for you. what a good little weapon! what a good little son!


	8. hbd

kaito could only dig up three candles from the recesses of various drawers. haruto is three years old.

"happy birthday," he says, and haruto stares blankly at the little flames and says, "is it my birthday?"

kaito's hands holding the plate are starting to shake. already. he should really be stronger than this. "it's your birthday, haruto. happy birthday."

the flames are reflected in the wet blank wideness of haruto's eyes like the sun on the moon. haruto says, "i didn't do my job well enough today."

"there's cake for you," says kaito, desperately. he bought it from the bakery downtown. he knew how to make cake once but he doesn't anymore and besides he doesn't have the time anymore. numbers hunting and all that. "don't you want the cake?"

haruto is starting to shake. "i didn't do my job well enough," he says, "they said i didn't do enough, they said - i want caramel."

kaito doesn't have caramel. kaito didn't think to bring caramel. the flames on the candles are so tiny they are already starting to burn out.

"i don't have caramel," he says as gently as he can. he has to put down the plate onto the floor to put his hands onto haruto's shoulders, feel his living warmth, feel his bone-skinniness. "i will next time, i'm sorry. do you want some cake?"

"it's small and sweet," whispers haruto. "it's a magic spell that'll make you feel better -"

it's haruto's birthday and something is slowly breaking in kaito's chest.

"i'll bring it next time," he promises, and slides the plate a little towards haruto. "i'll leave this here in case you want it later, okay?"

haruto nods absently, staring at the candles. they are barely more than tiny embers in the wick.

it's haruto's birthday and something is slowly breaking in kaito's chest and seeping something hot into kaito's blood, something like a crying.

kaito pulls haruto in to him, so small and ragdoll-soft in his arms (ragdoll with skinny bones), living warm heart beating warm, and kisses his forehead that is one year older today and says "happy birthday, haruto," and his voice cracks.


	9. zexal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was late at night and i was very tired and trying to capture the impression of everything i love about zexal i

here it is in all its stars and its space and vast celestial glory and here are the brothers the fathers the families. here is the hurting and the hurt and the revenge, struggling scrambling for the way things once were for a way to fix it all some way some how , cracked pain in cracked hearts in dying decaying bodies but in the center there is a love like a flame, a fumbling joyous love and a hope and a friendship and something that joins leaping and bright and never giving up ever and this is the - ! and the brothers the fathers the families broken cracked pain all, bathed in its light and healing in it like wax softens to cover the cracks. and here are the stars


	10. dancer *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is about vector

dance on the strings a skipping heel toe bounce turn if you fall you'll fall into the darkness in between. it's good, isn't it, it's fun !! isn't it, like a bared-tooth grin. you are always always moving little prince, little actor, little dancer, skip-trip over the strings plink-pluck a jangling carefree melody like a wild high-pitched laugh, isn't it fun !! to dance like this and not give a single shit, and laughing in the skip-singing freedom of it. careful where you put your feet, little performer, or you'll fall into the darkness in between


	11. flood

there is the ocean inside you and it roils and churns like in a storm. it’s always storming, inside of you. the ocean is always you are always restless. it is cold in your fingertips. it is cold at the bottom of it, the black black depths of it where strange things swim, and you cannot see them because it is so dark down there but you know they have teeth. you think that perhaps no one else has this, an ocean inside of them that crashes in anger-storm. they will learn of it when it overflows, when it starts to rise, when it pushes up into your mouth tasting of blood-salt, pushes past your teeth clenched against it, futile double rows of teeth clenched against it, spills out of your eyes and nostrils and all over the ground, rising, carrying you with it, you are drowning, you are swimming, you are


	12. vengeance

in this next life she is a mermaid that swims like a pale ghost shape under the ice floes and he is in a small boat in a sea of shifting white, lost and alone and adrift the way he usually is, only this time with nothing to hide it. in this life as in the past one she is something remote and inhuman and cold, eyes that see too far away. so, really, not much has changed. he is standing up to look at the horizon, his boots unsteady on the shifting bottom of the boat, and she takes advantage of that moment of precarious balance to rush underneath and send up a great swell of water. the boat capsizes. maps and oars and shouting boy go flying and the water catches him with a cold slap and she catches him too, one arm around his neck, pulling him under the ice, the water freezing against his fragile human skin. he can struggle but she is too strong, oh how different it is now, this is a revenge. when you hurt someone with the all-consuming blazing fire you must be prepared to deal with the cold, the water, the ice. this is what happens when you wear your mistake like something intentional, proud and smug and taunting. the ice-cold water is rushing into his open mouth, a bubble-cloud of a scream rushing out. the ice never forgives


	13. word association

boy doll plastic porcelain ugly jointed puppet strings up gloved hand controller ugly surly yearning porcelain face beautiful face ugly face ugly marionette dancing wicked wild dance like flames hot like the pent-up anger and grief stitched-crack down the middle burn-sliced by your own petard object of desire boy man teenager body in parts in joints that dance on their own finely carved beautiful boy ugly boy beautiful porcelain ugly sneer body in stitched-together mismatched parts that collide and dance uncomfortably haphazardly together


	14. we are *

astral thinks - something trembling into nervous existence, the water droplets the light - that he would not mind dying for yuuma, and

he is living for yuuma, and

what is it, astral, says yuuma

astral laces their fingers together and the contact shivers like breath on the surface of the water and his fingers glow between yuumas and there is something tremendous in his chest.

yuuma, he says.

what is it? says

yuuma, who is made of sunshine and pop rock candy that crackles and fizzes and something boundless and breathtaking and astral's breath is taken, stolen right out from his lungs and breathed into yuuma's, this is how a kiss works, isn't it,

yuuma who trip-skips up to the moon and astral follows him like a comet and they sit on the moon and watch the sunrise and eat cake and rice balls. yuuma, says astral, his hand in yuuma's, palm to palm, fingers entwined like vines,

yuuma, he says, i think i love you

and it comes out of him like a fernhead young and green tremblingly unfurling itself, when there is dew beading on its surface and the forest is spring-fresh and singing all around.

oh, that, says yuuma, and laughs, a laugh that tastes like sunshine where he presses it to astral's lips, i knew that.


	15. water/ice

deep black ocean depths and great walls of ice, two forces cold and silent and strong that sometimes move in tandem, sometimes against each other, the pushing and pulling and creaking groaning roaring deep beneath the surface. unstoppable force and immovable object rolled into one ancient solid coldness and then parcelled out into two young-old bodies.

they're not in school today. they've been sighted on a rooftop somewhere. no, they were in a back alley. no, they were standing on the place where the glacier meets the ocean and everything is immense and cold and a surging roaring kind of stillness. what are these children, their lips blue like a chill, like a not breathing, their eyes hard like polished pebbles,

they're fighting today, no one knows what it's about, but they've broken two tables and a hole has been punched through a wall; a strength too great for the child-limbs it lies in; a contained hurricane. the third table breaks. a crowd has gathered around, humans in their odd-colored mortal lives watching two forces of nature collide. they will be suspended for the property damage but there are no parents to write angry letters to

what are these children, the boy with eyes like the depths of the sea and a cold force like a tidal wave; the girl with chilled hands and a voice that echoes from far away as through the water-sculpted tunnels of a glacier. do they know what they are


	16. child of the

child of the

bomb-child, world-ripping-force-sealed child, ticking-ticking child, weapon-child, 

world-bridge child, universe-seeing child, world-destroying child

starry eyes. eyes flat like the moon. explosions within, explosions worlds away

child of the child of the 

pact-born child, ripped from parent and from family. property-of-the-universe child. property of this ancient war. no room for family anymore

child of the child of the child of the

there are bright-colored stars on the carpet. the pillow is soft. weak tired limbs, eyelids fluttering shut, sick-child dark-eye-circles child

Classified as the most dangerous factor in our possession. Do not anger. Do not let out of room. Do not remind of past. Do not distract from duty. Do not do not do not

(my mission is)

such a small weapon. such a fragile and frail weapon. such world-ending force inside this collapsing body. the lynchpin on which universes spin

child of the


	17. nighttime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sexual content cw (vkai)

they fall into bed together and it's something like a sigh. chris' hair is long like seaweed and tangles around kaito's hands, around his thighs, brushes soft over his skin. they don't speak much. the noises from kaito's throat are small and quick and tight and the noises from chris' mouth are long and sigh-soft and if either of them were particularly poetically inclined they could say it mirrors their two hearts, but neither of them are. it's not a particularly poetic thing, just fumbles and breathing and little wet noises in the dark. kaito's hands hold on too tight, fingers digging in, and chris' lips wander over his skin like an exploration. kaito's bones are too much there, his spine too sharp, and chris' hair falls down between them like a curtain shielding them from the rest of the world. like this, it goes between them, like a rhythm. afterwards they fall alseep in the bed with their limbs overlapping but by no means entangled, chris' hair seaweed-spread over the sweat-damp sheets


	18. childhood *

he was always a poison-touch kind of boy. dear mother, dear father,


	19. saltwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another old one

the water is cold the water is cold the water is cold. salt water in bruised split open knuckles and it hurts but it'll heal. will it heal? will it heal? the drowning is in the anger deep into it and the loneliness. you cannot walk on land but you can pretend to, you can fool yourself, but one day you'll be pulled back into the ocean , the ocean will take you with its snap-wave teeth and that will be it for you. there is a rage that simmers in your bones and catches in your throat and it takes the shape of something desperate and lonely and lashing lashing out, your knuckles are still bruised, the salt water seeps into them


	20. teamaking *

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wrote this as a warmup for nanowrimo
> 
> also, update: since there are some pieces in this collection that i am a lot more proud of than others, i put an asterisk next to the chapter titles of those where i'm actually like Look At This

iii is making the tea. he puts the water in the kettle and waits for it to get hot, the gas stove under it a muffled roar. iv wanders in and says what are you doing. i'm making tea, says iii, something nice and warm, it's calming, and iv scoffs at him, digging his boot into the ground a little. are you going to leave, says iii, getting the tea leaves from the drawer. they fill the kitchen with a soft fragrance. iv doesn't answer. do you want some tea, asks iii, and iv says no that's dumb, he says it petulantly like a child. like when they used to be children. iii gets two mugs from the cupboard and puts one of them in iv's hands, there's a chip on it from long ago a cold day with hot chocolate. iv wraps his hands around it and keeps it and when the tea is done steeping wordlessly holds it out to be filled


	21. transformation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> body horror cw

when the body arrives it is recognizable as human for only an instant before this world that is so hostile to anything human takes over. the heart collapses like a tiny black hole and sprouts into a crystal starbust, miniature mineral supernova. the skin ripples into a hardening like granite, like marble, like a sculpture; and like a sculpture it is at first rough and then polished down. the face rearranges itself and smooths into a blankness. the hair coalesces into a solid mass. the smooth surface crystals appear like eyes opening up one by one, the nest of gold extending tremblingly around like a leaf before solidifying. and inside - inside is being geode-hollowed out, the crystals growing and furring like mold, if mold were sparkling solid. the twin-world energy that pulses through the veins is a distant mimicry of blood - you have your red, you have your blue.

the transforming energy focuses itself into the mind, the soul; does a quick circuit to make sure all memories have been carefully wiped away. then the body that has been sparking and shuddering above the ground stills. the glow dims. the body lowers itself to the crystal-polished floor

now we wait for the eyes to open.


	22. lightweight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alcohol, emeto cw
> 
> have a big backlog of these things that I haven't posted, so i'll be trying to do that sort of spacing it out over a while

“woowwww,” slurs iv, champagne glass in hand. lightweight lightweight. “somebody’s upset they lost, hmm?”

the duel champion at his own victory banquet is soon going to be too drunk to sign autographs. there’s lipstick on his collar, smudged over his neck. “you’re just bitter,” he says, and takes another swig, spilling some over the pale gold of his coat. dripping in the lolling decadence of it, unsteady on his feet. “sore loser, huh?”

it’s unclear who he’s talking to at this point. a lot of them lost to him, that’s how tournaments go. “you can’t talk shit to me,” he says a little uncertainly, “i’m the duel champion.” then, louder, “i’m the duel champion! i’m important, okay, i’m very important -“

in five minutes he will vomit into the elegant vase in the bathroom and then rest his sick-feverish head against the mirror and stare into it, into his own eyes. maybe the barest flicker of something in there, something unnameable, but he’s too drunk to make it out. when v is quietly summoned to deal with him he’ll be passed out on the floor.


	23. ice cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd planned to update from my backlog in order but this was written a couple weeks ago. oops

iii is made of strawberry ice cream - pink, sweet, cold and hard from having been kept too long in the cold.

“you can’t hold my hand,” he tells yuuma regretfully. “i’ll start to melt.”

they are outside in the sun and it’s warm, the warmth is making iii dizzy and sleepy. he is starting to glisten a little. strands of his hair are losing their shape.

he smells strawberry-sweet.

“my brother,” he adds, “is made of licorice, bitter-hollow and tasting of attics and toys.”


	24. walking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more from the backlog. 2/26/17. 17 months old....

it’s a wide street cobblestones, orange in the sunset, iii is walking out to the horizon. he is walking. there is a candle in his hand and he must not let it go out. how much farther will he have to walk? away from it, away from it, away from it. it’s in a sort of space between, or inside, or after, a sunset-painted loneliness. how much farther. how much farther, how much farther, the candle still burns and iii is walking out all the way to the horizon. his feet are getting sore  


**Author's Note:**

> as always comments are greatly appreciated.


End file.
